Erotica (Brill's New Pauly)
A. Middle Ages Both Greek and Roman art is rich in erotic themes and objects of all kinds. They are found in a multitude of genres and modes of expression, from large-scale sculpture, painting and mosaics to craft products and finally small art objects (e.g. gems and cameos). When the triumph of Christianity brought an end to the eroticism of ancient art, the world of erotic imagery also disappeared from the light of day. Objects of this kind were, of course, collected and appreciated by connoisseurs in secret during the entire Middle Ages [ 1 ]. More importantly, however, a collective memory of those images remained,condemned now as idols and the seat of demons, and was kept alive initially by the pronouncements of many Church Fathers hostile to sexuality and images alike. It was their habit, while warning against heathen images, to allude to their seductive but pernicious qualities. Particular reference was made to the case of Praxiteles' Aphrodite of Cnidus, who by her nakedness and artistic perfection had ensnared a youth and caused him to attempt sexual intercourse with her 6. The assumed erotic power of (naked) statuary re- emerged in distorted and negative form during the Romanesque period in two ways: 1. in words and writing, for example, in the legends of diabolically instigated betrothals to statues of Venus (William of Malmesbury, 1125, German Kaiserchronik, ca.1150); 2. artistically, in the architecture of the pilgrim churches of southern France and northern Spain of ca.noo, in which the sculpture, scorned until then, reappeared in the form of obscene antitypes. Resistance to the assumed seductive power expressed itself in monstrously perverted imagery. Thus, for example, the motif of the Spinario (thorn-puller) was interpreted as an incarnation of heathen-priapic nature (Magister Gregorius) and circulated in countless male and female variants, sculptural and otherwise 5 (fig. 1). The image of Venus mutated into that of Luxuria, the snake- and toad-covered personification of lust (Moissac). B. Modern Era Gradually rehabilitated since the Renaissance, ancient subjects and artworks now became catalysts for contemporary erotic desires. Thus erotic themes from Antiquity with intent toarouse ('Amor and Psyche', 'Judgement of Paris', 'Rape of Helena', etc.) were firstpopularised on Florentine marriage chests ( 1 5th cent.). In the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice 1499) the dream of sexual fulfillment in word and image is transported to an ancient Utopia. Now there began a stream of related ancient subjects in the art and imagery of the New and Old World that continues unabated to this day. No style, and scarcely an artist, has failed to contribute to it 4. The most widely distributed personifications of male and female eroticism continue to be of ancient origin: Aphrodite/ Venus, Eros/ Amor, satyr, Pan/faun, maenad, centaur (Picasso!), etc. The gods, especially the amours of Venus and Jupiter, were models available for the representation of loving couples and couplings (cf. Carag- lio's cycle of engravings Lascivie or Amours of the Gods after drawings by P. del Vaga, ca. 1530); the preferred iconic models for women as the recipients of sexual attentions were Danae (Titian, Rembrandt, Klimt) and Io (Correggio). Even more than in the case of 'standard eroticism",' ancient models were used in the cultivation of deviant erotic inclinations. Hyacinth (Cellini) and Ganymede (Correggio, Rubens), and Antinous, for example, were encoded homosexually, while the Venus Callipygus and the reclining Hermaphrodite were favourite subjects where the aim was for fetishistic effect (cf. the adaptation of the Louvre Hermaphrodite by Bernini). The motif of Leda and the Swan was used to serve bizarre fantasies (Michelangelo,Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio). And Narcissus (Caravaggio, Pous- sin, Dali) became a synonym for pathological autoero (279) ticism (Freud). With the turn of the 19th cent., new icons of eroticism (e.g. 'Femme fatale', 'Pin-up girl') broke the dominance of ancient models, though without causing their demise (cf. the Lysistrata illustrations by A. Beardsley, 1896, fig. 4). Alongside these themes, particular motifs of ancient eroticism, such as coupling fauns, after a Roman sarcophagus (Marcanton Raimondi, fig. 2), have been popular over the centuries. The excavations of -» Pompeii (from 1748) and -> Herculaneum brought a breakthrough as regards motifs. Here small-scale and everyday art, often of a crudely pornographic nature, came particularly to light: copulating couples in many varying configurations on murals, graffiti, terra sigillata vessels, mirrors, clay lamps; and numerous phallic/priapic motifs, including winged penises (lamps, tintinnabula, amulets), which from then on became a favourite motif in classicistic graphics (B. Genelli, Wer kauft Liebes- gotterf, ca.1830, fig. 5). The finds were brought together into the Gabinetto segreto collection of the King of Naples (now Museo Nazionale), to which only selected visitors were allowed access 8. The cloak of secrecy (still existing) around the collection, which was later called the Raccolta Pornografica (RP), gave rise to all kinds of erotic publications (e.g. Baron d'Hancarville, Monuments du culte secret des Dames Romaines, Capri 1784) and unauthorised connoisseurs' editions (e.g. Marie-Cesar Famin, Musee Royal de Naples. Peintures, Bronces et Statues Erotiques, Paris 1832; Gaston Vor- berg, Museum eroticum Neapolitanum, 19 10). Numerous private collections came into existence in this context, among them Goethe's Priapeia and Erotika (for the most part impressions from antique intaglios). There was a late blossoming of 'priapism' in the ex- libris art of the 19th and 20th cents. (R. Balazsfy - after the Delian marble phalloi, fig. 3). Antique erotica, in their artistic reception and in collections and publications, long continued to play a role as a semi-sanctioned reserve for the articulation and satisfaction of erotic needs (especially erotic images), which was otherwise condemned. Even more recent scholarly publications, such as H. Licht's Sittenge- schichte Griechenlands 7, cannot deny this continuing impetus. -» Aphrodite; -* Danae; ->Eros; -▻ Ganymed; -» Hermaphrodites; -» Hyacinthus; -» Narcissus I. Mythical character; -▻ Pan; -▻ Satyrus 1 H. G. Beck, Byzantinisches Eroticon, 1986 2 A. Die- RICHS, Erotik in der romischen Kunst, 1997 3 R. Hamann, Kunst und Askese, 1987, 45-64 4 E. Fuchs, Geschichte der erotischen Kunst, 3 vols., 1908-26 5 W. S. Heckscher, Dornauszieher, in: RDK 4, 1958, 289-299 6 B. Hinz, Aphrodite. Geschichte einer abend- landischen Passion, 1998 7 H. Licht, Sittengeschichte Griechenlands, 3 vols., 1925-28 (Engl. J. Freese (trans.), Sexual Life in Ancient Greece, 2000, '1931). 8 G. L. Marini, II Gabinetto Segreto del Museo Nazionale di Napoli, 1 97 1. BERTHOLD HINZ